by Brianna Jean
I entered the ballroom, my black heels clicking on the wooden floor, my dress swishing around my legs. I stopped, staring before me with wide eyes. There was a stage behind the table that held an altar, just like any other church. The cross with Jesus hanging from it, the communion necessities, a giant piano, an organ at the back along the wall.
“We are going to sit and eat. There are quite a few things to discuss.” Lucifer moved to the head of the table and pulled out a chair. I heard it scrape along the floor as I tore my eyes away from the creepy altar. Nothing about this place felt holy. It was dripping in evil, flowing like a river throughout the place.
“Annalise,” Lanier said, forcing me to meet his eyes. He searched my face, and I nodded, letting him know that I was okay, and walked toward the table.
It could seat at least twenty, set with black and gold plates, goblets placed in front of each setting, like something out of “Game of Thrones.”
There was a place setting in front of every chair even though it was only the four of us and Lucifer. I thought there might be more coming until Lucifer spoke up again. “Please have a seat, dinner will be served soon. But first, there is someone I would like you boys to meet.”
You boys.
Meaning I already knew this person.
I tried to flip through my memory to figure out who it might be but came up empty-handed. It’s not like I made a lot of friends over the years. Brinley was gone, I saw Joey today, so unless it was my foster father or the one person I knew I’d never see again, I couldn’t think of anyone else that it might be.
I didn’t have to wait long though. Before I even got the chance to sit down, a door at the far end of the ballroom opened.
When I saw who walked through it, the light from the candles flared, my heart burst into a hundred tiny little pieces, the shards ripping up my throat as a strangled cry fell from my lips.
“AK?” I whispered, tears threatening to spill. The one person I never thought I’d see again walked toward the table. My legs felt numb under the weight of my body, the thoughts in my head. “Alias?”
I couldn’t seem to say anything else as I stared at the first and only man I ever loved. Alias Kenner walked toward me, taller than the Devil, more gorgeous than he was three years ago. My black heart lurched and cried out at the sight of his long blond hair pulled up into a messy bun on the top of his head. Dressed in all black just like the guys, he wore an expression I couldn’t read.
“Who the fuck is this?” Lanier asked, his voice booming around the silent ballroom.
His anger snapped me into mine. “Alias Kenner. My social worker. What the fuck are you doing here?”
He paused at the sound of my voice, his brown eyes softening at the corners, causing my heart to beat wildly in my chest. “Annalise, before you—”
“No!” I cut him off, shouting, “No, absolutely not. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“He’s your Guardian, darling, you can put the claws away.” Lucifer’s voice cut my anger like a knife and turned it into a dangerous weapon. I hadn’t realized that my claws were out, but I certainly wasn’t putting them back in now.
“Her Guardian?” Quint questioned. I wanted to look at him, to make sure he was okay, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from AK. Everything I kept hidden, all the emotions I ran from, he was the cause of all of it. I loved him, and he left me. He abandoned me as soon as I turned eighteen, when his job was done. “Since when do Guardians have Human bodies? They aren’t allowed to interfere.”
Lucifer chuckled. “No, they are most certainly not. But vampires aren’t supposed to exist either, and yet two of them stand in this room.”
I whipped my head to the table, finding the Devil grinning at me. “Oh yes, Queen, I do know everything. Please come and sit, you and Alias can catch up after this dinner is over. For now, I would like to explain a few things to you.”
I was hesitant to accept his offer. Alias’s presence was too much, too painful. He made me raw and weak. He was the reason I refused to let anyone in again.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
But I wanted to know what was going on more than I wanted to get away from him, so I reluctantly took a seat next to Lanier at the table across from the other two. AK moved to stand in the corner of the room. His expression spoke of pure regret, apologies shining in his sweet brown eyes.
Fuck.
I wanted to run to him, to bury my face in his chest and have him hold me like he did for so many nights, but I also wanted to shred him apart piece by piece and feed him to Quint’s Bull.
He was fucking dead to me.
I looked to Lucifer. “Spit it out. Why am I here and why do you keep calling me Queen? I’m not a fan of the games, either, so shoot it to me straight.”
He chuckled. “Brilliant girl. You’ll do good up against my daughter. She needs a little competition.”
“What the fuck does Lilith have to do with this?” Quint questioned, looking about ready to slaughter his father with his bare hands. He was tense and shaking, his rage turning his eyes into liquid lava, hot and ready to burn anyone who came close.
“Lilith is going to wage a war against Angelus, of course.”
Silence.
“A war against who?” I asked, pissed about all the games.
“Your kingdom,” Lucifer stated, looking at his nails as if this weren’t a fucking bomb dropping in our laps.
Lanier looked at me then, as did Cabe, before they both turned back to Lucifer. The Devil continued, “Alright, alright, I’ll explain, but I’m not sure you’ll believe me, so I have proof ready to go after I am finished with my tale.”
I looked to the guys, all of them staring at Lucifer with murder simmering in their eyes. AK still watched me, his heart screaming on his sleeves.
Lucifer cleared his throat, straightening in his chair. “I will start from the beginning. Settle in children.”
I shifted in my seat, suddenly nervous. This was what I wanted all along, wasn’t it?
“The Maker and I are one in the same. He’s the light, I’m the dark. Good versus evil and all that. One does not exist without the other. So I apologize ahead of time, but you four are just the pawns in our current game. But I promise you, this will be much fun.” None of us smiled or laughed, none of us even moved. “I’ll make this quick and easy for you to understand. Nothing you were told as children was true. Annalise, your father is named Michael, congrats on that sperm donor…his power tastes identical to yours, but you have a sickly sweetness within you that he doesn’t have.” He turned to Cabe, my heart beating wildly in my chest at the mention of my father. There’s no way this could be true, could it?
Lucifer smiled wickedly before continuing, “Cabe, you and your sister are the twins of those nasty Angels, the ones who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Those bastards were fierce, lucky you! You’ll be just as powerful—if not more.”
Sister.
Did he just say twins? My head whipped to see Cabe staring at the table in front of him, eyes wide. For the first time, I found that I wanted to go to him, to comfort him and help him work through the thoughts that were clearly running through his head.
Fuck, this was so bad.
But good ol’ Lucifer wasn’t done. He locked eyes with Lanier, and my throat threatened to close. “Lanier, I couldn’t believe it when I was told that The Destroyer had a son. What a fucking surprise! Too bad about the guy you thought was your daddy, his death was brutal.”
The fucking monster laughed, shaking his head with glee. Lanier went red with rage, and I fought the urge to go to him, knowing that Lucifer would immediately see it as a weakness. We couldn’t afford that.
“And Quint?” I asked, keeping my face straight, attempting to hide my emotions.
Lucifer smiled at me, his eyes shining. “Of course, Quint, my flesh and blood. There’s not much to tell there; you know how he came to be. The important part is that the four of you are descendants of The Kin
gdom’s most lethal Death Angels, and there will be war! One that you will lead together, just like we did way back when.” He clapped his hands and looked at each of us with twisted joy in his eyes. A fucking game. This was a game to him.
“War?” I asked, my head spinning. “Who the fuck is Michael?”
I looked to the guys—all of them had matching expressions. Rage, confusion, fear. All of us were on edge, listening to the Devil speak and searching for any sign of manipulation while knowing that he was telling the truth. He was too happy, too excited. His glee screamed the truth.
“Michael is the Death Angel who sent me here, dear girl.” Lucifer smiled and held out his hands. “The only Angel who had the power to defeat me.”
“And he’s my father?” I questioned, feeling sick.
“Oh yes, he is. But that’s not what we’re here to discuss,” Lucifer chided. “We are here to talk about your next steps. Darlings, you are not simply Nephilim. You are Death Angels. The Elite.”
Lanier cursed under his breath, Quint put his head in his hands, and Cabe hadn’t moved since he heard the word sister.
“There were five of us, back in the day, before Michael defeated me and I fell into Hell. And now, there are five of you,” Lucifer continued. “Though one of you is missing. You should probably find her.”
Her.
What the fuck?
“You’re telling me we’re the Elite Angels?” Lanier snarled. “I don’t fucking buy it, they’re just a rumor.”
“Did you or did you not drink Anna’s blood?”
The color drained from his face. Quint had been right all along.
“That’s what I thought. And you.” He looked to Cabe. “You calm her storms, yeah?”
Fuck me.
“Exactly,” Lucifer nodded. “Yes, you are the Elite, and you will continue to get stronger. I don’t sense all of your power yet, Annalise, or yours for that matter, Lanier, but don’t worry. It will come.”
I swallowed, the tornado of emotions swirling in the room had my head spinning, my throat dry. “How the fuck do you know all of this?”
Lucifer grinned. “Well, The Maker planned it, obviously. He was the one who asked me to sire Him a child, just like He did with the other four Death Angels. Of course, they didn’t know His end goal like I did at the time. To me, it was the perfect plan. I get the war I was looking for, and someone else gets to fight it for me. On top of that, I got Hellfire out of the deal. A child in exchange for a separate realm so that my Demons can go Topside? Fuck yeah, I’d give Him a child. The others agreed out of duty and devotion, not having any clue that they would be damning their children to lead a war between Angelus and Hellfire in order to save the Humans. It was genius really.”
All of us were stunned silent. The knowledge that our parents willingly gave our fates to The Maker without questioning what we would be born to do? That shit was a slap in the face.
Lucifer didn’t care as he continued, “Let’s talk about AK for a moment, get that out of the way. Alias, please come and explain yourself.”
My throat closed; breathing became too hard.
He was a part of this all along, he knew what I was when…
“I am your Guardian.” His voice threatened to split me in half. Deep and commanding, rough and feral, but underneath it all was the man who held me, bleeding and broken, after a session with my foster father. The man who put me back together after I swore that I’d officially fallen apart. “All of you. I have watched you all since you were born, made sure that no true harm came to you.”
“No true harm?” Cabe shouted, finally breaking out of his staring contest with the table. “Anna was beaten for nine fucking years!”
It felt like a knife had been shoved into my stomach as the words flew from his mouth. They sounded worse when someone else said it.
“The Maker is delightful, yeah?” Lucifer laughed, clapping his hands. “Such a ruthless God, He is. You all had to be broken, one way or another. Quint spent two hundred and seventy-six years alone, Lanier watched the man he believed was his father get torn apart and murdered on his front lawn, and Cabe was forced to see a girl he couldn’t have, every day for eleven years. He fell so in love with her that he never found peace, spending his time searching for a ghost. And Annalise? Well, she was beaten to a pulp every week for nine years. Sounds like the perfect way to create a group of monsters, yeah? Beat ’em up, rough ’em down, then give them more power than they know how to handle, and surely people will die. It’s brilliant really.”
I wanted to fucking smash something. I asked, “If this was The Maker’s plan, why are you telling us about this?”
Lucifer laughed. “Why do you think I had the boys searching for you? Why did I ask them to keep you safe? Well, because I was bored, and I wanted to be the one to tell you! Just had to get a hold of you before The Maker could, so I made sure to start the search a good amount of time before your Transition. I knew where you were, of course, thanks to AK, but the boys didn’t need to know that. I knew they’d find you in time. The look on your faces, it’s all truly priceless.”
Fuck. Me.
He got to us before The Maker could. I wasn’t sure that a meeting with The Maker would have gone any better, but it certainly would have been more pleasant, probably without the crazy laughing and obvious game play.
He chuckled, running a big hand across his handsome face. “But don’t worry, there’s more.”
“Hold on,” Alias interrupted, his voice strong. “Annalise, look at me.”
I couldn’t, I didn’t want to.
“Don’t fucking talk to her,” Quint snarled, and I closed my eyes.
Weak. I was so fucking weak.
Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.
“Annalise,” AK said softly, ignoring Quint.
I looked up and into his eyes, swallowing all the emotions I held deep within myself. He was so beautiful it hurt, physically, emotionally, even mentally. Seeing him again was like ripping open a sealed wound. The scar was there, but I didn’t feel it unless it was poked. Now it was open and bleeding, and I was a fucking wreck.
“I couldn’t interfere, I couldn’t step in. I was given orders, but I did what I could to help you after Brinley left.” He struggled to get the words out. He was a giant, standing at six foot seven, his muscles big enough to snap a Human in half. If I had met him knowing what I know now, I never would have believed he was Human. The man standing before me was dangerous, powerful, leaking his energy into the room and drowning me in it. Once, he was my safety net. My security blanket. Now he was only my pain.
“I don’t give a fuck, Alias,” I snapped. “You’re dead to me.”
He flinched, looking down before bringing his eyes back to mine. The depth of his feelings scared me, scarred me, ruined me.
I was struggling to hold it together. I wanted to reach across the table and sink my claws into his flesh, rip his head from his shoulders. My power simmered and felt dark, like what Lucifer was saying had awoken a part of me that wasn’t there before. It scared me, but if I wanted to, I could have killed AK and walked away without a scratch.
I could feel Lanier glaring daggers at the side of my face, no doubt angry about the obvious connection I had to Alias.
“Anna,” AK pleaded.
“Enough, you can suck her tits later,” Lucifer growled, the first sign of his true nature coming out to play. Then he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, there will be war, and you five will lead it. Though I’m serious about the fifth. AK, you should work on getting her now. Be gone.”
Just like that, AK disappeared, leaving empty air where he was just standing.
“Where did he go?” I stood up, despite myself, not liking that AK could be in trouble. “Bring him back!”
“No, he’s got things to do,” Lucifer bit out, annoyed. “Now sit.”
Invisible hands threw me into my seat, roughly. I quickly turned my head to look behind me but found nothing there.
Voice hard, I said, “No, fuck this! Are you saying that we were created for war? That we have no choice?”
“Of course you have a choice,” Lucifer mocked, smiling. “You could always choose to let Lilith take over the Human territory and watch as you, your mates, and all the Humans die.”
I sucked in a breath, what the fuck?
“Oh, did I forget to mention that Lilith wants to get rid of the Nephilim so that she can rule the Human territory? I think I did.” He nodded to himself and snapped his fingers before banging his hand on the table, making me jump. “Yes, that’s the plan. She’s working on making her own set of Elite Demons, and when I say making…I mean making. She’s a crafty one, my daughter. You five surely have your work cut out for you.”
“This has to be a fucking joke, right?” Quint questioned, standing up. “How the fuck does she think she can get away with that?”
“Who is going to stop her? Me?” The Devil laughed again, the sound grating on my last fucking nerve. “Certainly not. She wants access to the Humans, wants to create an open door for all her minions to do as they please. My only joy comes from things like this. Plus, if she wins, I win too. If she loses, well, that’s on her, no harm done to me!”
He was saying that we were created specifically to win this war, and I had no idea how to feel. Betrayed, confused, sick to my stomach?
Numbly I said, “You called me Queen.”
“Ah, yes,” Lucifer yawned, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up onto the table. “There is Hellfire, which holds my daughter’s favorite creatures. She reigns supreme as their Queen. Now, of course where there is evil…there is also good. Angelus. A realm created for Guardian Angels, Nephilim, upper and lower level Angels, and of course, The Elite. You guys. Lilith rules over Hellfire. And you, my darling little hybrid situation, are the Queen of Angelus.”
